Monday, March 29, 2010

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Reese is well on her way to becoming the next Rachel Zoe, stylist to the stars. Especially with outfits like this one:

Yeah, those are tights. No, she is not wearing a skirt over the tights. In fact, I had to put the smack down in order to get her to put on a skirt when we went to pick Avery up from school. Oh, and for those who are wondering, the tank is a size 3T. She wears a 5.

Not sure what this move is all about....maybe she's channeling Flashdance?Either way, the girl's got a bright future, as either a stylist, a dancer or, if all else fails, a bag lady.

Monday, March 22, 2010

To me, this picture captures the very essence of childhood. The toothless grin, the unkempt hair, the candy around the mouth. I just love it. If I was a really good photographer and put my photos on display in a gallery somewhere, I would call it "Childhood." But, since I'm not, I'll just title it that here, for myself and my loyal readers (Hi Mom!).

We just got back from what is, to date, the best vacation we've ever had. And it took place in little old Oklahoma! Beaver's Bend, to be precise. Maybe this ridiculously long post will make up for the fact that I haven't posted in a few weeks. (Thanks to those of you who noticed that I hadn't!)

The kids prepared for this trip for days. They knew we were going to be staying in a cabin in the woods, so they thought camo would be the best choice of attire. They had dress rehearsals several times in the days preceding our trip.

We arrived at the cabin Thursday afternoon. The kids were enthralled with all aspects of the cabin. Besides the fact that it's in the woods and we could do lots of exploring, it had a porch swing!

....and a hot tub!

Seriously, folks, if we never left the cabin, the kids would have been happy, as long as they could live in the hot tub. I think they would have slept in it if that wasn't extremely dangerous.

Aaron and I are considering putting one in the backyard, just so we don't have to hire babysitters anymore. I'm joking. Sort of.

We also did quite a bit of fishing.

I was surprised that Reese was our most avid fisherman. She couldn't get enough of it. Avery has been before, so I knew she liked it. Rhett was upset he didn't have his own fishing pole. In hindsight, we should have brought one for him, even though he can't cast, reel or stand still. His favorite part of fishing was throwing rocks into the water. I don't think any of the fishermen in the area appreciated it, but I couldn't keep him from doing it. Seriously, it was like an obsession with him. He couldn't walk two steps without picking up a rock, even when I said not to. It was like some force was compelling him to bend over, pick up a rock and throw it in the river. I must say, it was pretty cute when the rock would make a splash. He would make a fist and say "Yessss!"

Thursday night, we decided to cook hamburgers outside, over an open flame. Turns out, we are waaaay too "citified" to do something like that.

After much effort on the part of my sweet husband, he said "Mom, I think we're going to have to cook these indoors if you don't mind." I didn't mind. Neither did they:

Friday started off with more fishing, followed by a thrilling train ride. Ok, it wasn't thrilling for anyone except Rhett, but he's so enamored with trains right now, we just had to do it. It was totally worth it. He LOVED it. Almost as much as he loved throwing rocks into the water. Almost.

After lunch, we went for a canoe ride and then played minature golf. I don't have any pictures of the canoeing, because I didn't want to take my camera on the water. I have no excuse for not taking pictures of minature golf, except I was really concentrating on getting a good score.

Saturday started out rainy. But a little rain never hurt anyone, and we were determined to hike at least part of one of the trails. A little rain turned into a lot, but we still had a great time. In fact, this was my favorite part of the trip.

The weather continued to get worse - rain turned to sleet and 58 degrees turned to 32 in a matter of hours. We were stuck indoors for much of the afternoon. After putting together 2 puzzles and playing 78 games of Zingo, we started to get cabin fever. (Get it? Cabin fever? And we really were in a cabin? You can laugh later.)

We got out the yellow pages to see if there was any entertainment. There was a bowling alley in DeQueen, Arkansas, and a skating rink in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Aaron and I, being children of the 70s and 80s, hesitated only a moment before choosing skating.

Reese liked it, but I wouldn't say she loved it.

Although she lasted longer than Rhett, who was sick of it after about 20 minutes. Actually, I'm not sure he ever really liked it. He just went along with it because everyone else was. Here he is, wishing someone would take the dadgum skates off, already!

Avery hugged the wall for about 15 minutes before she got the hang of it. But once she did, she never stopped skating the entire 2 hours we were there. She was a skating machine. At one point, she pulled over long enough to say "Mom, this is so fun. This is my favorite part of the trip!" Totally worth the $8 we spent on admission. (For our whole family. Gotta love small towns!)

Aaron looked as if 20 years hadn't passed since he spent his Saturdays at the roller rink in another small town in Oklahoma. I, however, looked like this the majority of the time:

Look at those little kids darting in front of me. I didn't hit them, but at some point, a chubby kid in front of me decided to change directions and slammed right into me. He fell, I fell and his friend, who I didn't even realized was there, fell. Please take a moment to enjoy that mental picture...chubby, close-to-40-year-old mother of three, dogpiling two chubby, approximately-11-year-old boys in the middle of a skating rink.

At any rate, we had a great time. We woke up yesterday morning to snow covering the trees. It was a beautiful view out the back window of the cabin. Needless to say, we'll be going back as soon as we can!

(Still thinking about the pile of chubbies rolling around on the skating rink floor? Me too.)